


Iced Caramel Macchiato

by SimplyUndead



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, BoyxBoy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Smut, Oneshot, Phan - Freeform, Phanfiction, They meet at a coffee shop, Transgender, dan is transgender, i cant think of anything else, phan oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 01:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5111774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplyUndead/pseuds/SimplyUndead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danielle Howell never felt comfortable in her own skin and she couldn't figure out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iced Caramel Macchiato

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy! There's like, 3.6k words wow.

Danielle Howell never felt comfortable in her own skin and she couldn't figure out why.

It started as a young child - a little baby, really. Her mother would dress her in those cute frilly dresses with bows and ribbons. She didn't like it. She would fuss and whine and kick, desperate to not be swaddled in the girly material. 

Her mother took her fit throwing as it came, dressing her up anyway and dismissing it as being a baby. 

That wasn't the case. 

From a young age, Danielle knew she wasn't meant to be like this. Whatever this was, she didn't know. But she wasn't it.

Later on her short life, at five-years-old, when other girls her age were dressing up dollies and throwing tea parties for their teddies, Danielle sat in the floor, rolling toy cars and trucks around, vrooming noises escaping her lips.

Her mother paid no mind, figuring she was just a tom boy or that maybe her older brother rubbed off on her. Young children often mimic others, she had thought.

That wasn't the case.

Five more years passed by and now Danielle was a whopping ten-years-old. Double digits. She was growing up so fast.

She was a very active kid, always running and playing sports with her older brother. They played football - or soccer - and basketball. 

Danielle dressed in shorts or jeans and whatever T-shirt or hoodie she could find. She wasn't particular.

The girls at her school, however, weren't like this. They dressed in skirts and frilly dresses and played with barbies. They pretended to be mothers and cook for their baby dolls. Danielle didn't do any of this. And that wasn't normal, so the other girls decided one day to voice it.

"Danielle, you're so weird!"

"Why don't you play with dollies?"

"Maybe she has cooties!"

"Why do you act like a boy?"

That night, Danielle went home and cried to her mother, telling all about the mean girls and how they said awful things.

Her mother told her not to worry, to dry her tears because those snotty little girls didn't know anything. They were being silly because they didn't know how to have fun. Danielle knew how to have fun. She wasn't a boy. She was a girl just like them, she just liked different things. Wasn't that right? 

That wasn't the case.

Two short years later, when Danielle was twelve, she heard shuffling downstairs. You see, she had woken up from her slumber to a dry, cotton-like mouth. She needed a drink of water.

Danielle, in a long shirt and sleeping shorts, stumbled to the staircase, halting when she heard yelling.

Her mother and her father were screaming. She was too tired to completely understand and take in what was being said, but she did make out phrases along the lines of 'how dare you?', 'you filthy bastard' - that's a curse word ; she didn't like it - and "just leave!' followed by a 'I will!" proceeded by a 'well then, go ahead!' Then nothing but silence. 

She peeked down through the railings and to see her mother storming off to her room, leaving her father standing numbly in the kitchen.

She wasn't so thirsty anymore.

The next day, she went to school. She didn't see her dad that morning when she left or when she returned home. She didn't ask her mother.

That night, she woke up again to a dry mouth. By this point, she decided that maybe she should start bringing a glass to bed.

Danielle hurriedly shuffled down the stairs, stopping at the bottom to gaze at her father. She noticed two suitcases in his hands.

"Daddy, where are you going?" She whispered, quietly, remembering his words the previous night. He turned to look at her and sat the bags down.

"What do you need, sweetie?" He asked, dismissing her question. 

"I'm thirsty." Danielle said. Her father nodded and walked her to the kitchen and poured her a glass of water. He carried her upstairs and tucked her back in. He stayed until she fell asleep, stroking her forehead and humming a lullaby.

The next day, there wasn't a trace of her father left in the house. Her mother said he went on vacation when she'd asked.

That wasn't the case.

Later on, a few months later, she came to understand that her father left after she'd fallen asleep because he'd found another someone else. Someone better. He found a new family. A better family.

Danielle blamed herself for a little while, thinking that if she'd just stayed awake, he'd be here. She soon figured out that it was his fault, that he was a douche, and stopped holding herself accountable.

Now, at the age of thirteen, she stopped playing sports. She became fascinated with music. She found many great groups, like My Chemical Romance, Muse, Fall Out Boy, and more. She came to love the piano, and soon began lessons, before quitting and teaching herself.

The other teen age girls at her school didn't like her because she was different. They wore makeup and talked about boy bands and actors. She wore jeans and talked about anime and alternative music.

"You're such a weirdo!" They would say.

"You're so emo." They would say. 

"You're a lesbian! Stay away from me!" They would say.

Danielle didn't think she was weird, she just liked other things. She wasn't emo, she just liked her dark brown hair to be styled with a fringe. She didn't know what a lesbian was, but they said it such a derogatory way, it must be bad.

That night when she returned home, she borrowed her mother's makeup and put on an old dress she'd gotten for Christmas a few years back.

As she slid into the itchy cotton material and brushed some mascara on her eye lashes, she decided she didn't feel any better.

She went into the next room and asked her brother, Adrian, what he thought. He looked up from his video games and hummed.

"You look cute." He had said.

She didn't feel cute. She didn't like it at all. But, as she stood in front of the mirror, she decided that this must be right.

That wasn't the case.

Two years after the dress fiasco, Danielle was fifteen years of age, and now lived alone with her mother, as her brother was away at University.

She had decided long ago that dresses weren't for her, but she still wore mascara and lipstick. She still didn't like it.

Now, she sat on her bed at two in the morning, after attending a work-related party with her mother, the hated skirt that was forced upon her, lied in the floor, long since discarded and forgotten.

So, she sat curled up, pondering life and asking why and having an existential crisis, as she'd come to learn.

Her mind swirled with memories and questions.

Why couldn't she feel normal?

Her father left.

Why did her body feel so alien-like?

Those girls calling her names.

Did anyone else feel like this?

That night with the dress.

Why did she feel more comfortable with boys than girls?

Tonight with the skirt and the frilly top and her hair all curled and pinned back.

Why? Why? Why?

Maybe if she got on her laptop, she could stop her brain. Maybe.

Danielle grabbed her computer and started scrolling through Tumblr and Facebook. Her mind kept going back to the unstable whirlwind. 

Finally, she closed the tab and pulled up Google. She began searching things like, 'girls who don't feel normal', 'why do I feel different than other girls', and so on.

Nothing.

Finally, Danielle typed, 'girls who feel like boys' and as she clicked the little search option, she held her breath and kept completely still.

She exhaled shakily when words like 'transgender' and 'gender fluid' light up her screen. She clicked a link to a website, desperate to understand these words. One excerpt from the passage striked her interest instantly.

"Usually, kids don't think too much about their gender. It feels normal and natural for many girls to be female and for many boys to be male. But that's not true for everyone. Transgender people who are born as boys feel they should be female, and those who are born as girls feel they should be male.

People who are transgender feel like they're living inside a body that's all wrong for them. They often say they feel 'trapped in someone else's body.'"

Danielle felt an unknown weight lift from her chest and she finally felt like something made sense. 

Could she be transgender? Could she have really been born in a body of the opposite sex? She feels like she could've. 

But, she was a girl, right?

That wasn't the case.

The next day, after sleeping with this newfound information, she decided that this was the answer to all her questions.

She was a boy all along.

He was a boy all along.

Danielle needed a change. So, with all the money he could find, he set off with intentions to get a hair cut. He'd always liked short hair, but never had the courage to get it cut lest his mother would be upset. He was so excited and free at the moment that he couldn't even care. He printed off a picture of the hair he wanted and traveled to the hair salon.

As the long brown locks shifted and formed to very short chocolate hair, he smiled. This was it. This was him.

Danielle - now, deciding to be called Dan - walked the distance home with a leap in his step.

Later that night, his mother came home to find her child standing in front of the mirror, shirtless with an ace bandage wrapped around his chest, pressing the small breasts flat.

She gasped, startling Dan.

"Oh, Danielle! What have you done to your hair?! And-and what are you doing to with the bandage!?" She squealed in horror.

"M-mum. I...I think I was m-meant to be... A boy." Dan whispered queitly, testing the ice he was about to step on.

"What?" She asked, stunned and dumbfounded.

"I'm a-" Dan was abruptly cut off.

"No. No. I heard you. Don't you dare say those words. You are not a boy and you never was, nor will be! You are a young lady and it's time you start acting like one!"

That wasn't the case.

Later that night, a few hours after Dan had stormed to his room and broke down crying, his mother joined him, holding a carton of his favorite ice cream.

They finished it in silence and then began talking. 

His mother stated that she was sorry and she was just shocked. She didn't want to push her child away. She asked for Dan to explain what he was thinking, what he was feeling, and they would work through it together.

Dan explained how he never felt comfortable in his own skin. He never felt like his body was meant for him. He told his mother about getting picked on all those years ago. He told his mom about the dress and how it felt foreign and unnatural on his skin.

And she listened and nodded and when her son finished, she told him that she loved him and she accepted him and she was so happy to have two sons.

That night, Dan cried. This time, however, out of joy and not sadness.

That night, Dan's mother also cried. She cried because her son was happy. Her son was finally happy.

She was going to support her son. She was going to be there. She wasn't going to leave, not like her husband had.

That wasn't the case.

A whole year later, Dan was now sixteen, Dan was now happy.

He had started a fund to save money for transition surgery, something he and his mother had discussed and researchered for months. Dan decided that yes, he wanted it.

But, until then, he wore a binder under his clothes and dressed as he pleased and signed his papers 'Dan' at school and referred to himself as 'he' and 'him.'

Most people didn't question it. They just left it, knowing that he always seemed different. He never seemed like a girl.

Some, however, didn't take it in stride. They'd spit insults like venom and shove him in the hall.

Dan tolerated it, knowing that as long as he accepted himself, that was all that mattered.

One day, though, the tormenting exceeded hateful words and rude shoves. It escalated and led Dan to be in the position he was currently situated in.

He was pushed against the dull, gray lockers by none other John Carter and David Bradely, the two major pricks of the school. They taunted him with sneers and smirks and spoke horrible words that were annunciated with each kick or hit.

"If you're such a man, then fight back."

Punch to the stomach.

"Do something, you little trans."

Slammed into the lockers.

"If you're gonna act like a guy, then you're gonna get treated like a guy."

Right hook to the eye.

It went on and on, getting worse, but never too bad. They kept from hurting him too bad, but still tainted his body with bruises and scrapes.

He went straight home after that, hobbling to the bus stop and skipping his last three classes.

His mother wasn't home and he was beyond thankful as he scurried to the bathroom for a hot shower.

The fiery water burned his skin in a satisfying manner, loosening his muscles. The dried blood around his eye rinsed off with minimal scrubbing and flowed down the drain. 

He sighed as he got out, assessing his body as he dried off. There was an fist-sized purple bruise littering his abdomen, along with a blackening ring around his right eye. He touched at it gingerly, wincing at the sharp pain.

Dan groaned and wrapped the towel around his body, walking to his room. He shouldn't have went to the bathroom between classes. He figured it was his fault.

That wasn't the case.

The following summer, he had begged to switch schools, wishing to finish his last year of high school with a fresh start. His mother had hesitantly agreed, only doing so because she remembered those horrible boy that had hurt her son.

So now, at age seventeen, Dan walked the hallways of his new school to return home after an eventful first day. He had actually met a couple of guys that seemed really cool. Perhaps they would become good friends. Their names were Chris and PJ.

It was a whole lot easier to be himself because these people only knew him as a boy - as his true self.

He told his mum this and she was thrilled, obviously glad that she'd let him switch. Having her son be accepted let her know this was the right choice.

Over the next few weeks, Dan grew closer to Chris and PJ. For once he felt normal, accepted.

To celebrate, Dan decided to treat himself to a coffee after school one Wednesday. He walked into the shop, without a care in the world, and let the everything else fade into the background. This moment was about him and no one else, he thought.

That wasn't the case.

Dan walked up to the counter and waited for service, tapping his fingers against the counter and humming a tune.

"Hello, young man. What can I do for you?" An employee said, breaking him away from his thoughts. Dan looked up, shocked that this worker had classified him as male. Of course, the kids at school did because that's how he was so introduced, but this worker - his name tag read Phil - just assumed and that brought tears to his eyes. Being accepted and taken as a male in society. 

"Uh, excuse me, sir? Is something wrong? Are you okay?" The worker - Phil said. 'Sir.' He has said 'Sir.' Dan nodded rapidly, letting his short brown hair flop forward.

"Y-yes. Sorry. I just... I'm just really happy." He said, his muddy orbs glinting with happiness. "I'd like a tall iced caramel macchiato, if that's no trouble." The raven-haired employee with sparkling oceanic eyes smiled widely.

"Of course. No problem at all. Can I get a name?" Phil asked sweetly and Dan grinned. He'd never been treated so nicely by a complete stranger. He could really get used to this, but he knew that not everyone was as nice as this Phil character.

"It's Dan." He said simply, nodding as the worker said that it'd be ready soon and to go ahead and have a seat. Dan complied, shuffling across the small shop to an empty booth, sliding in and pulling out his phone and checking tumblr. He had since taken up running a transgender/sexuality positivity blog.

Soon, however, his mindless scrolling and reblogging came to an end when a drink was placed before him. He followed the hand up to the arm then on up to the shoulder and then to the head to identify the man as Phil.

"One tall iced caramel macchiato." Phil spoke softly in a deep gruff voice. Dan's jealousy sparked momentarily as he was stuck with a much softer voice, but he soon dismissed the envious thoughts. 

"Thank you." He said with a small smile pulling at his lips. 

"Okay, I know this sounds rather absurd, but I'm on my break, so do you mind if I sit with you?" Phil said, rather abruptly, taking Dan off guard, but also making him feel a warm, tingling sensation flitter in his stomach like a swarm of butterflies.

"Um, alright. Sure." He spoke, gesturing to the seat opposite him. Phil slid into the booth briskly, setting down his own mug of coffee. 

"I know this sounds insane, but something's telling me to talk to you. Kind of like this feeling that tells me you're important and special. Like, I'm meant to meet you." Phil said, his words quiet but passionate and containing meaning. 

Dan sat stunned in silence. This guy was weird, but in a good way. He seemed serious, like he seriously meant what he said. And that came as strange to Dan. After all, he'd never really been called special or important, just weird and a freak.

"I sound completely mental, don't I?"

That wasn't the case.

Over the next few years, Dan and Phil became best friends. And then they became boyfriends.

Perhaps Phil wasn't insane after all when he had sat down in that booth with Dan. Perhaps he wasn't insane at all. Maybe he knew what he was talking about, knew that Dan special and important. Phil would tell you that he, in fact, knew this was going to happen all along. Dan would tell you that Phil had accidentally drank too much Ribena before work.

Whatever the case, they had fallen in love and both would tell you that it was the best thing to happen to either of them. Especially once Dan moved in with Phil.

Of course, it hadn't always been easy. They went through rough patches like any other couple. Like the time Dan had totally forgotten about their date and accidentally stood Phil up. Or the time Phil had been having a grumpy day and snapped at Dan. Or especially when Dan sat Phil down and explained all about his past and the transgender situation. That day had been extremely emotional and nerve-wrecking for Dan (Of course Phil was completely accepting of Dan, not to mention extremely proud).

In fact, after Dan had told, Phil helped chip in to the fund for the costly surgery, adding in money after his weekly paycheck. Soon enough, all that saving added up to the money Dan and his mother had saved.

And that leads up to today. Dan, age twenty, already having the preliminary surgery to remove the female organs, was ready to go into the, hopefully, final surgery that constructed the penis and would finally give him the genitals to match his gender.

He was both excited and nervous and scared and happy all at once. He was terrified that something might go wrong or maybe it wouldn't work, but as Phil grasped Dan's hand, there was no doubt in his head that said this was wrong. This wasn't a mistake.

That wasn't the case.

A few weeks later and Dan was back home and happier than ever. He was finally happy in his body and he couldn't ask for anything better. He had support from his mother, his friends, Chris and PJ, and most of all, Phil. They were a so happy for him, but not as happy as he was.

He wanted so desperately to share his body with Phil, even if everything didn't look completely natural. He knew that wouldn't matter to Phil. He still worried, of course, that his raven-haired boyfriend wouldn't find him attractive of pleasing, but he figured that was because he was and always had been insecure and self-conscious.

What if Phil didn't want him, though?

That wasn't the case.

Four months later and everything had healed from the surgery. Dan had been told by the doctor that he was ready to try and participate in intercourse if he so desired.

And he did. So, there he was, naked and straddling Phil on the king-sized bed in their bedroom, tounges and limbs tangled desperately, heat radiating from their trembling bodies.

"You're so beautiful." Phil mumbled against his lips.

And as Dan spent his night out of breath and strewn in messed up sheets, he felt like he could finally breathe. He was free to be himself, his true self.

Dan was no longer held down or contained by his body or thoughts. He no longer had to hide behind some gender that didn't belong to him.

That wasn't the case.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment because I kind of like this, but at the same time, I don't. Other opinions would be appreciated.


End file.
